By Carol Sliwa, Features Writer

Transcription

1 Storage Explained: Cloud storage defined By Carol Sliwa, Features Writer «Tech Report At its most basic, the term "cloud storage" describes data storage that is made available as a service via a network. But that definition is so broad that it can encompass everything from Internet-based services that store a consumer's and digital photographs to a major corporation's backup data. This learning guide will supply readers with a cloud storage case study, explain the difference between cloud storage and cloud service, and provide a look at the future of cloud storage.

2 Cloud storage criteria There could be hundreds of cloud storage offerings or just a handful, depending on how broadly or narrowly one defines the term. Either way, the numbers are expected to grow this year, as cloud storage continues its skyward trajectory. "The problem with cloud storage is it's so much in its infancy that the term is wide open to interpretation," said George Crump, founder of Storage Switzerland LLC, a Fort Worth, Texas-based consulting firm. In the interest of clarification, industry analysts who deal with corporate IT professionals have been refining the definition of cloud storage to incorporate the following characteristics: -- Massively scalable -- Not tied to a specific geographic location -- Based on commodity components -- Billed on a usage basis, as in 15 cents per gigabyte -- Application agnostic Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, such as Salesforce.com and Google Apps, would not qualify as cloud storage, even though they do afford users the ability to store data. "If you're a developer, you can't write to their storage infrastructure, so we don't look at that as a storage utility," said Adam Couture, an analyst at Gartner Inc. Couture counts only a couple of players in the cloud storage space: Amazon.com Inc., Nirvanix Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc.'s Mosso cloud division. But he said the list will grow this year with the launch of new offerings from several companies, including at least three "big names" planning services similar to Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3). A look at Amazon S3 Amazon's service, based on the infrastructure the company itself uses, has experienced substantial growth since launching nearly three years ago. The Seattle-based company claims S3 held 800,000 objects at the end of the second quarter in 2006, but grew to 5 billion within a year and mushroomed to 40 billion by the end of A range of customers exist, from consumers saving personal data to Web startups offering online services and larger companies wanting to back up databases or store archival data. The New York Times, for instance, uses S3 to store and deliver articles from its historical archives. Another Amazon customer, NASDAQ, stores historical market data, making it available to traders through its Market Replay tool. Page 2 of 7

3 One of the most enticing aspects is cost. S3 pricing starts at 15 cents per gigabyte per month of storage used. The cost decreases as customers hit the 50 TB threshold. "We think about it as storage for the Internet," said Alyssa Henry, general manager of Amazon S3. "It's storage that's accessible from anywhere via http request and pay as you go, no upfront commitment, use as much or as little as you want." Cloud storage case study Cloud storage is not a good choice for high-transaction databases or temporary storage. But it can make sense for a company with unpredictable storage demands, a need for an inexpensive storage tier or a low-cost, long-term archive. In particular, cloud storage is a no-brainer for Web startups such as New York-based Behance LLC, which maintains sites for creative professionals to showcase and share their work and ideas. One of its sites, called Action Method, allows users to upload and share content, including documents, audio files and movies. "When we started building Action Method, we didn't know what the uptake was going to be, so we needed to make sure we had enough storage to accommodate any number of users," said Behance chief technology officer (CTO) Chris Henry. Mosso Cloud Files from Rackspace, the vendor that hosts Behance's Web sites, can supply infinite scale at far less expense than a SAN or NAS would cost. "With cloud storage," Henry said, "you never run out." The hardest part was writing an API to access Cloud Files, since Behance jumped the gun before Rackspace made available its Representational State Transfer (REST) API. Henry said it would have been easier if he had waited, since the Rackspace Web services API worked just as well. Still, "integrating any cloud service into an application requires some degree of work," Henry noted. He advises his peers to build into their applications early on the ability to store files in the cloud, so they can take full advantage of a system with no storage constraints. Web service APIs Amazon's S3 also requires customers, whether Web startups or enterprises, to do some development work. The company does no contract development but provides lists of partners that have built applications on top of S3, which supports both REST and SOAP interfaces, according to Henry. One cloud storage vendor that takes a different approach is Nirvanix. Its CloudNAS software, which is free to customers with contracts of 2 TB or more, removes the need to develop to an API. CloudNAS customers can turn any Linux or Windows server into a virtual NAS gateway to the Nirvanix Storage Page 3 of 7

4 Delivery Network (SDN). The software permits access to the SDN offsite storage through standard storage protocols, such as NFS, CIFS and FTP. Another distinguishing feature is the Internet media file system that Nirvanix developed to let customers manage their accounts. Nirvanix's principal focus is the enterprise that needs to store unstructured data such as video or audio files, medical images or engineering designs -- "all those large pieces of information that don't fit well in the traditional SAN or NAS systems," said CEO Jim Zierick. Its SDN has storage nodes at co-location facilities in California, Texas, New Jersey, Germany and Japan to cut down on latency issues, one of the knocks on Internet-based storage. Rackspace's Mosso takes the concept a step further, integrating its cloud offering with a content delivery network (CDN) through its partnership with Limelight Networks Inc. Users access content from the closest end point on the CDN. "We've had plenty of customers that use Cloud Files specifically for the ease with which that can take advantage of a CDN," said E.J. Johnson, the lead architect of Cloud Files. Noting that Amazon offers a CDN service called CloudFront, which can be purchased separately from S3, Johnson added, "I think the CDN aspect is now tending to be inclusive if you think cloud storage." Cloud storage vs. cloud service For Rick Villars, an analyst at IDC, content delivery starts to cross into the territory of cloud service. Also falling into that gray area are a raft of online data backup services such as Carbonite Inc.'s Online Backup, EMC Corp.'s Mozy (through its recently formed Decho Corp.), Iron Mountain Inc.'s Digital, Seagate Technology LLC's EVault (through its i365 Inc. company) and Symantec Corp.'s Online Backup, with files copied to the Symantec Protection Network. "In addition, IBM Corp. this week announced an as yet unnamed service that will give users of its Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files product the option to back up information to its private cloudbased storage. The offering, due by the end of March, will incorporate technology that IBM acquired through its purchase of Digital Arsenal Solutions a year ago. "Are things like Mozy cloud storage? Mozy is offering an advanced service -- this backup service -- which is a very good infrastructure service. There is a cloud storage facility that the application itself is leveraging," said Villars. "Mozy is a service built on top of cloud storage." In his estimation, such a cloud service doesn't constitute cloud storage per se, when the storage is a byproduct of another service. Mozy, for its part, doesn't classify itself as cloud storage either. "It's not storage as a service; it's backup as a service," said Devin Knighton, Decho's PR director. Page 4 of 7

5 Build your own cloud infrastructure EMC's real cloud storage play is infrastructure, or what it calls "cloud-optimized storage." Its new Atmos product lets corporate IT departments and large-scale Internet or telecommunications service providers build their own cloud infrastructure. Jon Martin, director of product management in EMC's cloud infrastructure group, said cloud-optimized storage is characterized by massive scale -- to petabytes and beyond -- policy-based management and operational efficiency. "One of the fundamental things we went after is this idea that storage technologies are no longer confined and consumed within a single data center," Martin said, noting that the Atmos-based infrastructure is designed to have footprints around the world. Other vendors in the cloud infrastructure space include Bycast Inc., Cleversafe Inc., Ibrix Inc. and ParaScale Inc. Such offerings may hold special appeal for corporations that want to take advantage of cloud technology yet have concerns about security. A company has the option to build the cloud storage infrastructure and leave it behind the firewall in a private cloud. Terri McClure, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, predicts that private clouds will spring up, the same way networks evolved from a small token ring inside a company to virtual private networks (VPNs) and IP networks. "It's going to take a long time for people to get comfortable to just throw everything out there into the ether" in a public cloud, she said. Yet analysts expect cloud storage to grow during the next couple of years. The future of cloud storage "The big thing this year will be the entrance of traditional IT suppliers, the likes of the IBMs, the [Hewlett-Packards] HPs, perhaps the Microsofts. They will become more explicit about their offerings and how they're going to integrate them into their other product portfolios," wrote IDC's Villars in an . Published reports also continue to stoke discussion on a possible new entry from Google. But it won't just be major vendors capitalizing on the hot trend. Encinitas, Calif.-based Vaultscape Inc. launched a storage cloud specifically designed to handle archival storage for enterprise companies that have large amounts of data. The company's veteran team includes founder and CTO Chris Williams, who was formerly with Nirvanix, and scientific advisor Dr. Aloke Guha, who founded Copan Systems Inc. and developed its file system and architecture. Page 5 of 7

6 Vaultscape's differentiators include a self-healing file system and "multi-master architecture," with two independent vaults that are available at all times. Data is replicated to two different geographic locations, but it is not done through a single core, so there is no single point of failure, according to Michael Witz, the company's co-founder and director. "What Vaultscape is showing is how the industry is maturing so there are storage clouds focused on specific needs within the large storage world," Witz said. "It's not a one-size-fits-all world." Storage Switzerland's Crump predicts the next two years will be good for cloud storage vendors. The challenge for potential customers will be sifting through the many choices that will flood the market. "Cloud storage should be one of those technologies that benefits from a down economy," Crump said. "Buying your storage a gigabyte at a time as opposed to a complete system may make a lot of sense for companies with very tight budgets." Page 6 of 7

«Tech Report What's inside internal storage clouds? By Alan Radding Although internal storage clouds are a rarity today, it's clear what their appeal will be. Just about every vendor is advertising some

SPECIAL REPORT JUNE 2011 Cloud Storage Deep Dive Extending storage infrastructure into the cloud Copyright 2011 InfoWorld Media Group. All rights reserved. Sponsored by 2 How to get the most from cloud-based

Getting Started With Cloud Storage Thinking about making a move to the cloud? Explore this guide to discover the key considerations you need to know before taking the plunge. Cloud Storage Options: Public

1 Chapter 4 IT Infrastructure: Hardware and Software LEARNING TRACK 3: CLOUD COMPUTING Copyright Kenneth C. Laudon, 2009 Stern School of Business New York University 44 West 4th Street New York, New York

State of Cloud Storage Providers Industry Benchmark Report: A Comparison of Performance, Stability and Scalability Executive Summary Cloud storage is a young industry, but one that clearly has great promise

The software platform for storing, preserving and sharing very large data sets www.active-circle.com The easiest solution for storing and archiving very large data sets! ACTIVE CIRCLE HIGHLIGHTS Software-based

3 common cloud eradicated 3 common cloud eradicated Cloud storage may provide flexibility and capacityon-demand benefits but it also poses some difficult that have limited its widespread adoption. Consequently,

All can damage or destroy your company s computers along with the data and applications you rely on to run your business. Losing your computers doesn t have to disrupt your business if you take advantage

Realizing the Value Proposition of Cloud Computing CIO s Enterprise IT Strategy for Cloud Jitendra Pal Thethi Abstract Cloud Computing is a model for provisioning and consuming IT capabilities on a need

White Paper Service Providers Greatest New Growth Opportunity: Building Storage-as-a-Service Businesses According to 451 Research, Storage as a Service represents a large and rapidly growing market with

2012 Industry Report A Benchmark Comparison of Performance, Stability and Scalability Executive Summary Cloud storage is a young industry, but one that clearly has great promise for growth. Large organizations

The Cloud at Crawford Evaluating the pros and cons of cloud computing and its use in claims management The Cloud at Crawford Wikipedia defines cloud computing as Internet-based computing, whereby shared

CASE STUDY Nirvanix, Inc. Finds a Secure and Reliable Data Center and a Strategic Partner for Cloud Services at CyrusOne The Company Nirvanix, Inc. is the leading provider of enterprise-class cloud storage

DataDirect Networks the largest private storage company gears up for hyperscale Analyst: Simon Robinson 21 Feb, 2012 DataDirect Networks, more commonly referred to as DDN, believes itself to be the largest

Designing a Cloud Storage System End to End Cloud Storage When designing a cloud storage system, there is value in decoupling the system s archival capacity (its ability to persistently store large volumes

SWIFTSTACK WHITEPAPER An IT Expert Guide: Understanding Object Storage and How to Use It November 2014 The explosion of unstructured data is creating a groundswell of interest in object storage, certainly

E-Guide HOW TO SELECT THE BEST SOLID- STATE STORAGE ARRAY FOR YOUR ENVIRONMENT SearchSolidState Storage P erformance is the driving factor for the vast majority of companies considering a solid-state storage

Object Storage: A Growing Opportunity for Service Providers Prepared for: White Paper 2012 Neovise, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Introduction For service providers, the rise of cloud computing is both a threat

State of Cloud Storage Providers Industry Benchmark Report: A Comparison of Performance, Stability and Scalability Executive Summary Cloud storage is a young industry, but one that clearly has great promise

REACH FOR THE CLOUD Learn How Advisors Are Embracing Technology To Better Run Their Practice Today s Presentation Introductions The evolution of technology past, present & future Top drivers of cloud adoption

DIY: Build Your Own Pi Private or Hybrid Storage Coud Cloud Howard Marks Chief Scientist Where I Come From 25 years as a consultant in the midmarket From the school of been there, done that, t broke that

Cloud Computing Backgrounder No surprise: information technology (IT) is huge. Huge costs, huge number of buzz words, huge amount of jargon, and a huge competitive advantage for those who can effectively

Cloud Computing: Current Market Trends and Future Opportunities by Martin Tantow, Editor-in-Chief, CloudTimes.org Commodity Infrastructure as a Service Cloud computing continues to gain more mainstream

Starting the Journey to Managed Infrastructure Services A GUIDE TO SELECTING INITIAL WORKLOADS FOR MIGRATION CONTENTS Executive Summary. 2 A New Age of Innovation. 2 IT Has Reached the Pivot Point. 3 The

7 remote office backup options: Which is right for you? Data protection for remote and branch offices has always been on top of the pain point list for storage administrators. However, with a recent uptick

Evaluating SaaS vs. on premise Increasingly organizations are given more options and evaluating SaaS vs. on premise options can be challenging for organizations. In this expert E-Guide, readers will learn

www.egnyte.com The Hybrid Cloud Advantage White Paper www.egnyte.com 2012 by Egnyte Inc. All rights reserved. Revised June 21, 2012 Why Hybrid is the Enterprise Cloud of Tomorrow All but the smallest of

Private Cloud Expected to Grow at Twice the Rate of Public Cloud In This Paper Security, privacy concerns about the cloud remain SaaS is the most popular cloud service model in use today Microsoft, Google

Introducing 365 Cloud Storage Local Enterprise Cloud Storage SERVICE AVAILABILITY: SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 What we do 365 Data Centers provides secure and reliable colocation services that offer an easier way

Creating a Cloud Backup Service Deon George Agenda TSM Cloud Service features Cloud Service Customer, providing a internal backup service Internal Backup Cloud Service Service Provider, providing a backup

Managing the information that drives the enterprise STORAGE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO in the Clouds Cloud-based services are all the rage, but should you move your online, nearline or backup storage to the cloud?

Cloud Computing Terms: Advertising-based pricing model: A pricing model whereby services are offered to customers at low or no cost, with the service provider being compensated by advertisers whose ads

Leveraging Cloud Storage with SharePoint and StoragePoint By Chris Geier Published: June 2010 CONTENTS OVERVIEW AND SCOPE...2 ABOUT STORAGEPOINT... 2 WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?...2 SHAREPOINT IN THE CLOUD?...3

2013 Cloud Storage Expectations cloud A recent TechTarget Survey suggests that while many IT budgets are decreasing or remaining flat, cloud projects are still on the rise and will continue to be throughout

Nasuni enables collaboration among users of files no matter where users are located Introduction The Nasuni Service combines the availability and scale of cloud storage with the local performance found

The unique value proposition that Nirvanix brings to customers is the ability to completely eliminate capital expenditures by embracing an enterprise class storage-as-a-service model that delivers usage-based

Platforms in the Cloud Where Will Your Next Application Run? Jazoon, Zurich June 2011 Copyright 2011 Chappell & Associates An Organization without Cloud Computing Users A A A VM VM VM A A A Application

Starting the Journey to Managed Infrastructure Services A GUIDE TO SELECTING INITIAL WORKLOADS FOR MIGRATION CONTENTS Executive Summary. 2 A New Age of Innovation. 2 IT Has Reached the Pivot Point. 3 The

205 Industry Report A Benchmark Comparison of Speed, Availability and Scalability Executive Summary Both 203 and 204 were record-setting years for adoption of cloud services in the enterprise. More than

Hadoop http://hadoop.apache.org/ What Is Apache Hadoop? The Apache Hadoop software library is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using